1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to a loading dock for use with trucks, shipping trailers, and other vehicles, and more specifically to a mobile, multi-capacity trailer dock.
2. Background
Structures such as warehouses, manufacturing facilities, retail buildings, and other buildings often include at least one loading docking for receiving trucks with shipping trailers so that goods can be transferred from the trailer to the facility or vice versa. These docks are often located near the facility's staging areas, storage rooms, or freight elevators. Loading docks may include a variety of associated structures, such as bumpers to protect the dock from damage by trucks, an adjustable-height platform between the dock and the truck, dock seals to provide protection against the elements, and a dock lock to prevent a truck or trailer for rolling during loading and unloading operations. Many structures associated with loading docks are designed to increase the efficiency of the loading and unloading processes.
Hindrances to efficiency continue to exist, however. Buildings are equipped with a limited number of loading docks, and the number of truck trailers received at those docks during a given time interval often results in the number of available docks being the limiting factor in terms of efficiency of loading or unloading. Increasing the number of loading docks in the structure is often impractical or impossible, and even if this can be done the use of additional loading docks increases the cost of labor as additional workers are needed to man the new loading docks. Without sufficient personnel present at the new loading docks, they cannot be used to increase the speed of the loading and unloading operations.